


Slings and arrows

by oddishly



Series: seasons [4]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:28:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26118826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddishly/pseuds/oddishly
Summary: Merlin decides the only way out is through.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: seasons [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1299026
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	Slings and arrows

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to furloughday for spending nearly as long staring at this as I did <3

They’re a very long way down, water dripping cold from the roof of the cave and down the back of Merlin’s neck, before Arthur finally brings everyone to a halt in a very small, very narrow tunnel that’s only getting smaller and narrower.

“All right,” he says, and turns with difficulty to face all the idiot men who’d followed him. “Ideas?”

“Back out the way we came?” says Merlin. He bats a drop of water away before it can land. “We’d be home by breakfast. I think.”

“Quiet, Merlin. Anyone else?”

Far away at the back of the line, Percival says, “I dunno about what’s next, Sire. But I don’t think I’m going to fit down this way if we keep going much further.”

“Me either,” says Gwaine, in front of him. “By which I of course mean that I don’t fancy pulling you out if you get stuck, Arthur.”

“I could,” says Elyan from in front of Gwaine, with a bold attempt at sounding ready for anything. He lifts his torch, trembling a little. “But Merlin’s in the way.”

“And I’m not strong enough to pull you out of anything,” says Merlin, and ducks when Arthur rolls his eyes and goes to thwack him. “Seriously. Can’t we come back tomorrow? That last big cavern looked comfortable, sort of.”

“Hilarious, Merlin. I’m sure all the child hostages will understand that the knights of Camelot needed their beauty sleep before setting out to rescue them.”

“Just a suggestion,” Merlin says. He watches Arthur’s shadow, swaying against the wall in the torchlight. “We’re no good to anyone exhausted.” 

Arthur ignores him. “Okay. I don’t like this. Turn around. We must have missed another passage somewhere—we’ll find all the other routes and split up to save time, if we have to.”

Merlin takes advantage of the knights grumbling as they turn around, leaning in to whisper to Arthur. “You know there aren’t any routes that we missed.”

“And _you_ know I’m not going to stop for a nap.”

Merlin shrugs. “I’m right, though. You weren’t fighting fit even when we were still in the castle. How’s your leg?”

“Keep your voice down, how do you think it is?” An arrow went through Arthur’s knee during yesterday’s battle and Merlin suspects part of the arrowhead broke off on the way through because the skin has slowly been turning an agonising purple. 

“I’ll give you a poultice when we stop,” Merlin says and stays in front of Arthur the whole way out of the passageway. It’s a long way back up and the knights quickly outpace them. This is probably a good thing anyway because it means he doesn’t have to cover up the sound of Arthur’s breathing, which he notes is steadily getting heavier. He aches to stop and push Arthur to the wall before he gives himself another injury.

At the top, chests heaving with the exertion, they look out past a small obtrusion in the wall at the knights already spilling around the cavern to find ways they had missed and not a single glance behind. 

“Right,” says Arthur, and takes another step in. “Onwards.”

He staggers and Merlin leaps after him, wrapping an arm around his waist to stop him from falling. “Backwards,” he says firmly, and keeps his hand tight on Arthur’s hip, pulling Arthur with him to the damp rock wall behind. “You need to stop here. The knights can explore and you can look at your map of the caves as if you’re deciding which way to go next, and they won’t even be able to see you unless they walk around this--” Merlin gestures at the protrusion of stone that’s jutting out into the passageway. “This sticky outy bit of rock. And actually you don’t even need to pretend, you can actually decide which way to go next. Once we’ve found our way out.”

Arthur gives him an unimpressed look, sweat glistening on his forehead. “And where will you be while I’m taking this little rest, hmm?”

“Where I always am,” says Merlin, and sticks to Arthur’s side as he eases him the rest of the way to the ground, shoulders hitting the wall. 

Arthur’s body is very warm. Merlin tries not to focus on that.

He snags the map from Arthur’s grasp and unfurls it across the ground, placing rocks in every corner before finally, carefully rolling up Arthur’s trouser leg over his knee. The entry wound is small but dark, an angry-looking bruise forming an inch or so above the bone. He touches it as gently as he can, feeling for whatever part of the arrow got left behind.

Arthur hisses through his teeth. “That hurts.”

“We could leave it in and see how much it hurts to get out in a week,” says Merlin, continuing to feel around. “And you don’t have to watch, you know.”

“I do, who knows what you’d get up to if I wasn’t supervising. Would it kill you to take some care?”

“No,” says Merlin, “but it might kill you to wait.” It probably wouldn’t, but Merlin doesn’t feel like giving Arthur the option. He wants to keep Arthur here, where he can keep him safe. “Aha—” Merlin presses in a little and feels something under the cut that shouldn’t be there.

Arthur pales more. “Stop or I’ll hurt you.”

“Not if I don’t get this out,” Merlin says. He kneels and peers closer, rolling Arthur’s knee a little this way and that to get the torchlight, and thinks he can see something glinting through the gradual seeping blood. “There. Do I need to get Percival to hold you down?”

“Try it and see how far it—”

Merlin grasps the little metal shard and yanks, holding Arthur’s leg down with his other palm as Arthur jerks and swears. 

“Stay still,” says Merlin. He gets the fragment halfway out but then loses his grip in all the blood and has to fumble around again to find it. “Nearly.”

Arthur makes a noise in the back of his throat.

“Got it,” says Merlin quietly as he slides the bit of metal the rest of the way out. It’s a fragment of one of the arrow tips, broken into a crude hook. Merlin drops it and returns his attention to Arthur’s leg, the wound now bleeding freely all over his knee. “Glad I’m doing this on the floor of a cave. A cave in the middle of nowhere.”

“Get on with it so I can find a place to dispose of your body,” says Arthur. His breathing is rough.

Merlin can feel Arthur’s eyes on him as he looks closer at the cut, trying to find any more fragments without touching more than he needs to. “The knights will be on their third way round this cave if you take much longer.”

“Don’t you want them to be thorough?” Merlin picks up his small blade and hopes Arthur is too out of it to notice the edge glowing a little too long after it passes into the flame of the torch. “Take a deep breath and breathe out slowly, there’s a piece left I can’t get with my fingers.” 

Arthur does as instructed. “I expect my knights, and you, to be nothing less than thorough,” he says on the exhale, and groans a bit when Merlin goes in again with the knife. “But this is very compromising.”

Merlin shuts his eyes briefly, fingers flexing above Arthur’s knee, trying to stop himself picturing it. He wouldn’t care that much if the knights found him and Arthur compromised. In fact he wouldn’t care that much if the entirety of the court found them compromised. This was a problem.

“So it is,” he says after a long moment. Then, “Ah!”

He leans forward to show Arthur the _v_ of metal on the blade, smaller than the last one, barely the size of a fingernail. “I think that’s all of it.”

“Good,” says Arthur, eyes fluttering closed again. “Now get your damn poultice.”

The damn poultice is a mix of herbs Merlin had picked, painstakingly, under the last full moon, and packed away despite Arthur’s eye-rolling. Merlin fills the wound as best he can, fingers sure, mouth carefully closed. The poultice is a good one and the arrowhead wasn’t that deep. It should be fine in the morning. Or whatever time of day is some hours’ sleep away. But there’s blood soaking Arthur’s trouser leg and pooling on the rock below, and Arthur’s face is grey with pain. At some point he had grabbed Merlin’s shirt, fingers tight in the material.

He doesn’t open his eyes until Merlin is done binding his leg. “Thank you.”

Almost on cue, the sound of the knights gets louder, echoing back into the top of the tunnel where Merlin and Arthur are sitting. Gwaine is talking about the meal he’s looking forward to and how he wants his fish cooked when Percival interrupts. “Do you see that?”

“I see the tunnel we just came from, and all the others that didn’t go anywhere,” says Elyan over Gwaine, inexplicably talking about food still. Merlin wonders where exactly Gwaine thought he’d hidden all this seafood. “Gwaine, we’re all hungry, this is making it worse. If Leon was here he’d have knocked you out to give us a bit of peace and quiet.”

Arthur shifts. Merlin puts his hand on his leg and whispers, “Stand up now and I’ll knock you out myself.”

“You can try,” Arthur whispers in reply, but stays where he is. Merlin leaves his hand where it is.

“Is it my fault you’ve such a poor imagination?” says Gwaine with something less than his usual verve. “Oh—I see it. Didn’t we go down that one first?”

“No, look behind—it looks like it’s a different sort of rock but it’s actually just obscuring another passage.”

“Oh. Well spotted, Perce. Dunno how we missed that on the way in.”

“Too busy thinking about your stomach,” says Elyan. “All right, no use waiting around. You first, Gwaine.”

Merlin and Arthur stay still and silent while the knights bluster into whatever new passage Percival found, and don’t talk until all they can hear is echoes. Merlin waits for Arthur to catch his eye again and points down the length of the tunnel again. “It didn’t get that small. You know we have to sleep.”

“Your insight astounds me,” says Arthur. He pushes himself higher up the wall. “Yes. But we need to be ready to go as soon as it gets light. Or as soon as I think it’s light outside, who knows what time it really is. Help me up.”

Merlin rolls his eyes. “What did I just say? I don’t want to give you a concussion. Wait here, you’ll be fine after you’ve rested for a bit. I’ll go.”

He watches the flames flicker across Arthur’s face, which is still pale and glistening with sweat. Arthur finally gives in. “Fine. Come back the instant you find … anything.”

Merlin thinks about the bandits with all their whirling blades, inlaid with a magic he wasn’t familiar with. “Riches. Beautiful maidens. That sort of thing.”

“Exactly,” says Arthur. He tightens his fingers again, although now he’s not holding Merlin’s shirt so much as his forearm. Or his wrist. Then he lets go.

“I won’t be long,” Merlin says. He stands and turns, feet sure and heart unsteady, and sets off deeper along the way.


End file.
